N7 — Restaurant in New Orleans

N7 has a very pretty courtyard and an extensive wine menu, but their inventive dishes fail on multiple levels. Stick to the basics and drinks. The service was confusing, the crowd annoying.

What worked: Mussels: nice shallot-garlic-wine mussel broth. Too bad a server (not even our server) quickly took them away before we were finished. Watermelon salad: spheres of watermelon and melon topped with a soft feta and herbs. Fresh. Duck Liver Paté: Decent, came with a nice side of assorted pickles, gave us extra bread to finish it. Steak au poivre: Well-cooked (rare-medium rare), served w/ nice mashed potatoes and béarnaise sauce. Campari spritz: refreshing, but the first drink came with noticeably less Campari than the second. Lovely courtyard, I also liked the smooth gravel on the ground (nice to place one’s feet on after a long day of walking).

What didn’t work: Grilled bok Choi: Stringy, difficult to cut, covered in a blue cheese apple sauce that was far too strong for the dish - tbh I don’t think it would have worked with a less strong sauce either. Salmon Tartine: Sake-cured salmon (nice) was totally overwhelmed by the sweet warm goat cheese below it. If you like Philadelphia rolls, maybe you’d dig this? Tempura escargot: Escargot texture/flavor covered up by deep-frying it. The plating was pretty but the garlic cream sauce added very little to the dish - it was too sweet for it as well. The thyme sprigs helped tie it together slightly better, but it was still missing something, perhaps salt even. -Soy sauce creme brûlée: soy sauce was in the custard, didn’t work. Would have worked better as a Japanese salt (some are soy sauce flavored) to top the dish. I’ve had plenty of savory custards (e.g., egg custard w/ soy sauce is a favorite quick dish to make up), but the savory-sweet in this custard didn’t have that sweet-salty appeal at all. To top it off with flambé did nothing - if the custard isn’t good plain, it won’t be good with a flambé on it either. Service: From start to finish, 3 different servers took our order, felt a bit rushed (they didn’t even ask if we’d finished the mussels - arguably the best dish we had - just whisked them right away to be replaced by the questionably edible bok Choi. Crowd: Very white, a bit dressed up, got several looks from the table behind us (we’re an interracial couple), and the two men next to us felt entitled to our server’s time to the point of absurdity - I believe they chatted her ear off for 15 minutes straight at one point. I believe that’s why we had two other servers picking up the slack.

Overall, the Japanese “touch” here failed, and the French food was decent. I do wonder how the locals feel about this place - do they give back to the predominantly Black, working-class community at all, or are they just here to shuck out French nostalgia to their annoying patrons? Never going back here, especially for the price - if you’d like to spend $150 for 2, go to nearby Bywater American...

Atmosphere - 5 stars, awe-invoking atmosphere, beautiful garden and architecture, fantastic finishing touches with the table-side decorations and oil lanterns. There are many elements that are contributing to the atmosphere and a lot of depth to this experience, and it was incredibly well done. This is undoubtedly the best element of the restaurant.

Service - 5 stars, we had an incredible server and every person from the wait staff that we spoke to was kind and helpful and contributed to the experience in a positive way. They did a great job. My wife and I both were particularly impressed with the pace of the evening, as we felt neither rushed nor neglected at any point throughout the experience. This is an incredibly difficult balance to strike, and our servers and this restaurant did a great job at achieving this.

Cost - you’re really paying for the atmosphere in my opinion. It was a fantastic experience overall, but for the premium pricing at N7, I would expect the food to be top-quality, and it just wasn’t.

Food - We ordered everything our server recommended: raclette charcuterie, avocado salad, duck and fig tartes flambé, and the steak au poivre. We capped the night off with a few desserts, which were both fantastic.

However, the food was perhaps the only disappointment. Every dish was just “okay.” Nothing we had was bad, but it certainly wasn’t anywhere near the quality that you would receive from any other restaurant with a comparable price tag. Nothing about the food seemed original or packed with exciting flavor fusions. It was all very simplistic and basic. The dishes were also all quite small, and were more of sample of flavor rather than an actual contribution toward a satisfied stomach. I can understand when restaurants serve smaller dishes when you are “wowed” with the flavor and/or when each dish contributes to the overall flavor experience in a unique way, but the menu at N7 doesn’t quite accomplish this. On the positive end, their drink menu was very expansive. We aren’t drinkers and didn’t order any, but they do have a lot of options.

One final element of the experience that was less desirable was that part way through the evening, the wind started picking up. The trees in the garden started dropping large amounts of pollen fairly consistently on us, our food, and our beverages for about 10-15 minutes. The staff was extremely accommodating in bringing us under the covered garden dining area for the remainder of our meal, although some type of protection from the pollen would have been nice. I also recognize that’s only a seasonal issue.

Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed the experience. and if the cost of dining here were more reflective of the quality or quantity of food that you receive, I would make this a regular date night spot for me and my wife. If they could find a way to really bring the cooking to the next level, this would be one of the premier dining spots in...

Reservation this evening for a party of 6 - we are a group of restaurateurs who get together every month and treat ourselves to a nice dinner. We were very excited to dine at N7. Unfortunately, from the moment we sat down, our table was always waiting for something. It started with the water, which took a very long time to even get the first glass. Our server always seemed like he was in a hurry and uniterested in providing good service, to the point of dropping an item at the table and promptly walking away without even asking if we wanted to order anything else, almost seemed like he was just trying to get away! Our bottles of wine took an excessive amount of time to arrive at the table, so much that we often sat without anything to drink, and at the 3rd bottle we ended up just ordering 2 at once because it was taking so long. We had a 44 minute window during our nearly 4 hour meal where we had no water, even after asking for it. The food was great! Nothing over the top or fussy, a lot of unique dishes, but again, timing was WAY off. We ordered 4 items at once on our last "course" and 2 were delivered over 25 minutes apart from the first 2. Instead of checking in on our table at all, our server was so non-existent with us that we often had to wait to order more food, which then made it take an extra long time. For example, we waited over 20 minutes for water, then again for our first bottle of wine, he dropped off the wine and just walked away! By that time we were ready to order! We were also served an incorrect bottle of wine but no one was around or even looked our way, so we drank half the bottle. When we were finally able to tell someone, they straight snatched the bottle with the remaining glass and a half in it from the table and set it on another table right next to us! Instead of just saying, "We are so sorry for the mistake, please finish this and we will bring you the bottle you ordered." We would of happily paid for them both! We had to remind them that we still wanted the correct bottle after it didn't show up and we just watched the other wine sit on the table next to us until it was bussed away... what?! The staff seemed very dismissive. We probably would have spent way more money too had we had the opportunity to order more. The ambiance is great, the evening lovely, the food good - service was awful and probably the worst I've had in the past year or so. Even if short staffed (not sure if that was the case) we can totally understand, but set the expectation with the table from get go. "Please excuse our wait times this evening we are a little understaffed but will be taking good care of you," would have gone a LONG way for tonight's meal. Instead, we were left discussing how bad the service was by the end of dinner. When service is so bad that even the food can't save it, it's time to refresh on those...